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characterisation of the canterbury tales
characterisation of the canterbury tales
the canterbury tales summary essay
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The 14th Century is a time in which the power of the English Church started to vanish because of multiple reasons. And Geoffrey Chaucer’s greatest work, the Canterbury Tales, can be a good evidence of the profligacy and immorality of the England Church at that time. In this magnificent piece of English literature, Chaucer expresses both his disappointment and admiration for the England Church through many different Church pilgrims form high social class to common people. By his description about the living qualities and moral standards of the various Church people, we can see that Chaucer thinks the English Church is a greedy institution where money comes before religion. And the Churchmen’s lavish personal lives indicate that most of the Churchmen don’t act in a Christian way. However, regardless of these Church people’s good or bad characteristics, they are all well educated in Chaucer’s Tale. Quite interestingly, Chaucer doesn’t say a word about the Medieval English Church in his prologue. But through these Church pilgrims, he spread his comments on the Church and Churchmen in a “silent” way. Writing about the pilgrims drawn almost from every rank of 14th Century English Church, the Canterbury Tale takes a look at almost every angle and class of the Church. Each of these Church pilgrims has his or her instinct stories. But these people’s different experiences and characteristics are all reflections of Chaucer’s point that Church is a hypocritical institution in which money is the real religion. Lots of these Churchmen use God’s name to get money for their own wills. The pardoner once said in front of everybody that his only desire is to be rich. In order to achieve his dream he sells relics and pardoners to people. And the ... ... middle of paper ... ...s a dictionary of 14th century English peopleIn this majestic piece of Literature, Chaucer uses physiognomy and striating to express his suggestion, dislike and admiration to the Church. He thinks Church has been polluted by people’s own greed and lost its original faith. He doesn’t like the Churchmen because they are nothing like their spiritual leader Jesus and don’t practice their religion in life. But he admires how people are well-educated in Church though these educations don’t do much in building of their moral standards. Today, more people think that indeed Canterbury Tale is a historical critique against the society during Chaucer’s time. But no matter how people define it, its sparkling dialogue, acute rendering of characters, warm humor and sympathetic understanding of Church, society and human nature will always shine in the universe of literature. .
The dominance of men in the Middle Ages is unethical, irrational, and dangerous; women are given few rights and the opportunity to earn rights is non-existent. The dictates to the dominance is formed by the internal combination of man’s personal desire and religious interference. In Geoffrey Chaucer’s, The Canterbury Tales, the combined perspectives’ on a haughty Pardoner and non-subservient wife is the stronghold of separation in moral roles. The moral roles between men and women are exemplified in the rankings of religious hierarchy for men are at the top and women towards the bottom. Even prestigious women, ones with noble connections, are subservient to men, but contradictorily have religious affiliations. The “Wife of Bath’s Tale” is a perfect example of defying man’s dominance and the “Pardoner’s Tale”, a problematic reasoning of why selfishness connects moreover to the manipulation. The frailties of religious reasoning however, will cause The Pardoner and the Wife of Bath to be separated from society’s morals.
Chaucer first begins his sly jab at the Church’s motives through the description of the Pardoner’s physical appearance and attitude in his “Canterbury Tales.” Chaucer uses the Pardoner as a representation of the Church as a whole, and by describing the Pardoner and his defects, is able to show what he thinks of the Roman Catholic Church. All people present in the “Canterbury Tales” must tell a tale as a part of story-telling contest, and the pilgrim Chaucer, the character in the story Chaucer uses to portray himself, writes down the tales as they are told, as well as the story teller. The description of the Pardoner hints at the relationship and similarity between the Pardoner and the Church as a whole, as well as marks the beginning of the irony to be observed throughout the “Pardoner’s Prologue and Tale.” The narrator describes the Pardoner as an extremely over confident, arrogant, and unattractive man, noting that his hair is “as yellow as wex,” lying thin and fl...
“Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live” (Proverbs 15:27). The Bible condemns the value of greed and Chaucer is able to incorporate this value into his work through the ironic uses of holy men. Chaucer’s “The Shipman’s Tale” and “The Summoner’s Tale” suggests that the monk and the friar have an overactive id which overpowers their superego- evident from the character’s selfish motives and their rejection of their holy vows.
The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer are a collection of Middle English short stories written about a group of pilgrims telling tales as they journey to the shrine of St Thomas Becket. In this collection of tales, Chaucer introduces a slew of interesting characters representing all walks of life who present intriguing stories of their lives. The character of Chaucer serves as our guide throughout this story. Chaucer’s narration is unique in that we see him both as someone who could be there in the tavern with the group but at other times, Chaucer is a narrator who seems to know far more than he should. With this type of narration, we gain different perspectives on the pilgrims and
In the 14th century, war, and violence were prevalent. The Canterbury Tales were written during the Hundred Years War, when the Catholic Church was dealing with the Western schism, and “Against the darkest period of his life…” (Bloom 14). The story is centered on a group of thirty pilgrims who are traveling to the shrine of St. Thomas at Canterbury (Bloom 14). The pilgrims are all focused on a theme which is backed by the story’s underlying tone of religion.
Many of the religious characters in The Canterbury Tales represent character traits that are different from what is traditionally expected of them. This is because the Catholic Church, which ruled all of England, Ireland and most of Europe in the Fourteenth Century, was extremely wealthy. Extravagant cathedrals were built in every big city while the people suffered from poverty, disease and famine. The contrast between the wealth of the church and misery of the people was overwhelming. As a result, the characters in Chaucer's tales were portrayed as deceitful and greedy. Two examples of this are the Summoner from the "The Friar's Tale" and Death from the "The Pardoner's Tale."
Chaucer’s book The Canterbury Tales presents a frame story written at the end of the 14th century. It narrates the story of a group of pilgrims who participate in a story-telling contest that they made up to entertain each other while they travel to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. Because of this, some of the tales become particularly attractive for they are written within a frame of parody which, as a style that mocks genre, is usually achieved by the deliberate exaggeration of some aspects of it for comic effect. Chaucer uses parody to highlight some aspects of the medieval society that presented in an exaggerated manner, not only do they amuse the readers, but also makes them reflect on them. He uses the individual parody of each tale to create a satirical book in which the behaviours of its characters paint an ironic and critical portrait of the English society at that time. Thus, the tales turn satirical, ironic, earthy, bawdy, and comical. When analysing the Knight’s and the Miller’s tale, one can realise how Chaucer mocks the courtly love convention, and other social codes of behaviour typical of the medieval times.
Many pilgrims in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales held a religious position. Some of these people’s personal ideas have caused debates and criticism over Chaucer’s opinion of the Catholic Church. Critics have discussed the ideas that were presented both subtly and openly. Two of the pilgrims and their tales will be discussed: the Prioress and the Pardoner. Both of these tales offer points of criticism in the Catholic Church.
The Canterbury Tales is a literary masterpiece in which the brilliant author Geoffrey Chaucer sought out to accomplish various goals. Chaucer wrote his tales during the late 1300’s. This puts him right at the beginning of the decline of the Middle Ages. Historically, we know that a middle class was just starting to take shape at this time, due to the emerging commerce industry. Chaucer was able to see the importance and future success of the middle class, and wrote his work with them in mind. Knowing that the middle class was not interested in lofty philosophical literature, Chaucer wrote his work as an extremely comical and entertaining piece that would be more interesting to his audience. Also, Chaucer tried to reach the middle class by writing The Canterbury Tales in English, the language of the middle class rather than French, the language of the educated upper class. The most impressive aspect of Chaucer’s writing is how he incorporated into his piece some of his own controversial views of society, but yet kept it very entertaining and light on the surface level. One of the most prevalent of these ideas was his view that certain aspects of the church had become corrupt. This idea sharply contrasted previous Middle Age thought, which excepted the church’s absolute power and goodness unquestionably. He used corrupt church officials in his tales to illustrate to his audience that certain aspects of the church needed to be reformed. The most intriguing of these characters was the Pardoner. Chaucer’s satirical account of the Pardoner is written in a very matter-of-fact manner that made it even more unsettling with his audience. Chaucer uses his straightforwardness regarding the hypocrisy of the Pardoner, suggestive physiognomy of the character, and an interesting scene at the conclusion of the Pardoner’s Tale to inculcate his views of the church to his audience. The way that Chaucer used these literary devices to subtly make his views known to an audience while hooking them with entertainment, shows that Chaucer was truly a literary genius.
The Canterbury Tales examines many important qualities of human nature. Chaucer purposely mocks the faults in his characters, and shows the hypocrisy and deceitfulness ...
The stories on The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer often undermine societal hierarchies at the time. The tales Chaucer tells highlight aspects of authority that would otherwise never be questioned. In “The Miller’s Tale”, the notion of a clear useful economic hierarchy is challenged. Chaucer critiques chivalry in “The Knight’s Tale,” testing the value of the authority it provides. In “The Friar’s Tale”, Chaucer questions the benevolence of the church and its position hierarchy. By giving archetypal characters the freedom to act in opposition to their hierarchical roles, Chaucer calls the nature of authority into question.
Written by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the fourteenth century, The Canterbury Tales and more specifically it’s prologue, shed a great deal of light on the rising middle class in (fourteenth century) England. Despite the fact that some readers may not know a lot about the time period today, Chaucer’s writing in the prologue elaborates on topics such as occupations, wealth, education, and political power. Scholar Barbara Nolan writes of the prologue, “it is more complex than most…It raises expectations in just the areas the handbooks propose, promising to take up important matters of natural and social order, moral character, and religion and outlining the organization the work will follow” (Nolan 154). In other words, while noting the distinct complexity of the writing, Nolan points out that Chaucer’s prologue gives the reader a lot to digest when it comes to both background information and overall form of the following writing. Focusing on the background information supplied in the prologue, readers quickly become educated about middle class England in the fourteenth century despite having been born hundreds of years later.
The tithes from the people were what made the Church so wealthy (“The Medieval Church”). With wealth and power, and the fear of damnation, the Church was able to be as corrupt as it wanted because there was no one to stop them. Because of this corruption in the Church, a man by the name of Geoffrey Chaucer bec...
Chaucer uses the Prioress, the Monk and the Friar to represent his views on the Church. He makes the three model members of the Church appear to have no problems with self-indulgence, greed, and being unfaithful to their vows. He displays his anti skeptical thoughts of the faults of the medieval church by making fun of its teachings and the people of the church, who use it for personal gain. Chaucer see’s the church as corrupt, hypocritical and greedy.
The characters introduced in the General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales each represent a stereotype of a kind of person that Chaucer would have been familiar with in 14th Century England. Each character is unique, yet embodies many physical and behavioral traits that would have been common for someone in their profession. In preparing the reader for the tales, Chaucer first sets the mood by providing an overall idea of the type of character who is telling the tale, then allows that character to introduce themselves through a personal prologue and finally, the pilgrim tells their tale. Through providing the reader with insight about the physical and personal traits of the pilgrim and then allowing that person to come to life and tell an animated story, the reader is more prepared for the story as well as able to relate the physical description to the telling of the story. The physical and personal descriptions of the Miller, the Wife of Bath and the Merchant all aid in the telling of their tales. Chaucer was able to create tales that were perfectly suited for the characters that are presenting them. In having each tale told by someone who has a personal reason or motivation for telling that specific tale, Chaucer creates more of a reaction from the reader as well as provides the entire work with structure.